On Losing
by ilexx
Summary: A bit of Beka and Dylan angst set at the end of S4. An answer to a picture challenge on EI. Oneshot.


**On Losing**

_**Dylan**_

He dragged his feet as he walked towards the _Maru_'s cockpit. He was moving in slowmotion; in fact, he was moving so slowly he was hardly moving at all. In all his life Dylan Hunt couldn't recall to have felt more anxiety than he was experiencing right now. He wasn't scared or frightened – he was almost paralyzed from sheer terror.

She was going to leave, and there was not a damn' thing he could do about it. Or anyone else for that matter. Still, he had to try one more time, talk her out of leaving them, make her stay and fight and... And then what? Die with them? For _Arkology_? For the _Andromeda_? For him?...

If there was one thought even more horrifying than to have her leave, it was to have her stay. And fight a useless battle. And lose it. And be gone. And with Beka gone, he knew he would be useless. She always had been there. Tyr had betrayed him, Rhade he didn't really know, Harper was... well, Harper, Rev followed his calls, and Trance had changed and changed and she would change some more. There was but Rommie and Beka; yet Rommie was a warship. His warship. He cherished and he loved her, she was his home and shelter, but Beka was a different matter altogether... Beka was his partner, his friend, she was his captain, as much as he was hers.

The sight of her cowering in front of some old storage boxes stopped him dead in his tracks. He saw her shoulders shake with suppressed crying, watched her throw aside a man's – Tyr's – chain-link shirt, followed by a glass globe and God knows what more stuff she had stored in those cases. She hadn't sensed his presence, and only when she threw her empty bottle of alcohol behind her back she noticed.

He caught the bottle by reflex, and that got her attention. She turned around, mockingly greeting him by waving with another bottle, that she had just opened. Her traits were drawn and worried, her eyes red and puffy from incessant crying, and she had been drinking. But if someone had asked him, Dylan would have sworn that he had never seen a more appealing face than Beka's in his entire life.

„Beka, you never drink..." Even to his ears he sounded simply hopeless. What he was trying here was useless: Beka Valentine had left him already. This wasn't about staying. It was a last farewell.

_**Beka**_

She saw him coming nearer, standing in front of her. _Dead man walking_, she thought.

He was saying something. What, she couldn't tell. She only wanted to jump up to him and punch him, take hold of his shoulders and shake him and ask him: 'Where the hell is Dylan Hunt and what did you do to him? You know, the High Guard captain, the guy who never would abandon his crew, his friends, the Known Worlds to serve a hopeless cause.'

She didn't, though. She listened and, judging by the look on his face, even gave proper answers.

The whole thing was surreal. She had no time to lose talking to a shadow, to somebody who by now was only a mere image of someone who once lived. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe he didn't understand. Maybe she could explain.

„Those people think there's beauty," she heard herself saying. „There isn't. There's but darkness reaching out of darkness." Through tears she saw his face, tensing up a bit more. He sat, no, he almost fell down next to her, pulled down by some weight too heavy for him to bear.

„I want what no one else here seems to want: to live!" she had told him earlier, but that was only half true. She wanted them all to live, and to live together. She wanted to wake up from this prolongued nightmare and know that they were safe: Harper and Trance and Rommie, Rhade and her. And Dylan. More than anyone Dylan. Was it too much to ask? Was it too much to want?

She listened to his voice, that sounded almost as soft as a caress, saw those huge blue eyes, clouded by tears, pleadingly looking at her, felt his strong hands holding on to her own like for dear life and felt the warm softness of his lips gently brushing over her skin.

And as the _Andromeda_ shook, hit by yet another shockwave from the explosions that were tearing _Arkology_ apart, as he stood up to leave her, she knew that – no matter how gently he tried to reassure her, no matter how much he seemed to hurt because of her leaving – he still had lied to her... He was not going to stand by her every step of the way. Not anymore. Never again.

_**Beka – Aftermath**_

As soon as she exited the portal she turned around and re-entered slipstream. She was going back. As slipstream rides were, it hadn't been one of her smoothest.

Blinded by tears she hardly could see the displays properly . Her hand seemed to burn there, where he had kissed it. And she could still feel his touch.

„We will meet again, in happier times..." he had told her. It was a lie, she knew it, but she didn't care. She didn't want to wait for those ‚better times', risking they never came. So she flew back... to the _Andromeda_, to Rommie, to _Arkology_, to Harper, Rhade, Trance... It was a lie, another one! Her lie. She flew back to Dylan... Hoping he was still there.

_Dylan – Aftermath_

He dreaded those late hours, alone in Flavin's house. His hands... they were so empty. They had been ever since he took his leave from Beka. He had hung on to her hand like a drowning man hanging on a lifeline. And she had returned...

But by then it was too late. His controls were blocked and he couldn't escape the Route of Ages. He left them all behind! No matter how he put it, he had abadoned Beka, who did what she did best: standing by her people, standing by him – again!

And now he was on Seefra. But he had found Rhade. So maybe Rommie, Harper, maybe Trance... and Beka...

He had abadoned Beka. He watched his empty hands.

The End


End file.
